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Fighters engaging missiles....

Now, i like to ensure my interceptors on patrol will automatically engage air threats that approach... so they are almost always on "fire at cleared targets" orders.

This option is great, it lets me get on with manageing the scenario without usually having to micro manage indivual patrols, however, i have noticed an unfortunate side effect...

Just last night, i literally saw 4 fighter wings (2 planes each = 8 jets total) literally EMPTY their Amram racks in an effort to shoot down an enemy missile group containing 8 anti ship missiles that happend to cross them on its way to my ships.

Is there a way to avoid this? or is it a consiquence of letting them engage targets on their own? All 8 planes had to be sent back to rearm as they were now useless in there cap role due to lauching ALL their long range AA weapons at missiles. Switching to "conservative" ammo mode doesnt seem to help this situation.

The interceptor AI will literally EMPTY its racks to try to intercept enemy missile, often COMPLETELY IGNORING enemy jets that are in range, in favour of trying to kill missiles.

Is this intentional?

Could we perhaps have a "engage all planes" toggle for interceptors, to stop them wasting missiles on missiles? or at least have them prioritise jets in range rather than missiles.

Yes missiles have priority, since they are an immediate threat to something you want to preserve. However, the reason missile threats empty your missile stores is that they normally come in bundles of 10-20, while fighters come 1-2 at the time. The only way to avoid it is turning off automatic engagement. Another reason is that the AI decides how many missiles to fire based on hit probability. On an aircraft, that may be 90% (evasion and countermeasures aside). On a sea-skimming missile, the hit probability is much lower, so it fires more missiles.

The "attack strength" setting is only for specific attack orders, it is not a property with the unit. The AI makes its own decisions.

I'm pretty confident that this is the way it works, yes. True, it gives you a chance to make the AI waste its AA missiles and render the fighters unarmed. But you may have noticed the AI is doing the same thing to you

I have a point here not related to plane shooting missiles at other incoming missiles(not sure how good are the AAM at hiting down ASM missile in real life but I assume they were build for anti aircraft porpouse and there must be a penalty trying to engage ASP missile so probably its accurate to think that normally AAM are not that good against ASP missiles).

Its very easy and much more efficient to destroy incoming missiles using the aircraft guns(something like 90% kill probability). This is not a problem for russian ASM missiles with travel at higher speeds than most planes(Mach 2.0 +) but it's a big problem for missiles like the Tomahawk and Harpoon which are slow and easy to intercept using just 1 fighter.

Not sure if fighters are so efficient using their guns on ASM missiles(normally they should be because its plausible) but still it creates a problem. The fact the aircraft have unrealistic acceleration times also contributes to this behavior, it's far to easy to intercept and destroy a group of Harpoon with a fighter right now in the game.

Also during turn(at least fast turn) planes normally loose speed is this modeled in the game ?

We're aware acceleration times are quite unrealistic. We'll work with that; it is a simple matter of changing the database.

Also the slowing related to sharp turns are so far not really modeled (you may have noticed it sometimes happens, sometimes not). There are still some nice tweaks to keep us busy in the weeks and months ahead

Thanks for your feedback, its nice to know that you're having this issues under consideration for future updates, with some little tweaks NWAC can really become a great game.

Unfortunately there are not many games(of any) that try to model the intricacies of modern warfare and they why you have a heavy burden on your shoulders, we do(the community) everything we can to help thought, thanks for bringing us a game on a subject that is totally neglected by the bit guns of the gaming industry.

Is there any way to tell your fighters to cancel an attack? Would be a good idea instead of having to constantly switch between the movement and fighting panel to change the aircrafts course so it does not attack - Or am I missing something and it is already possible to do so? I have noticed that during air battles, fighters seem to not always target the closest and most potent threat.

When I see a group of a couple dozen ship-killers and runway-wreckers coming my way, I'm happy with anything that helps knocking them down. And there's little point of interceptors zooming after bombers that have already launched their standoffs, meanwhile allowing the same standoffs to destroy the interceptors' home base.
But that's just me.

Im also curious about the flares and other counter-measure devices which many of the aircraft carry. It happens that sometimes they evade incoming missiles, but, othertimes they just get shot down. What gets me is that they are carrying fares, (it reads 6/6 on the display) and yet, they do nothing and get shot down. Specifically happens with my poseidon. Its frustrating. Has it got to do with altitude? Am I supposed to click something to ensure they are using them?

And General Baker, Yeah, most of the time I have the engagement panel open as im using different ammo trying to conserve certain load outs. This is why i guess it is an issue, as all of a sudden the aircraft will target something 90-100nm further away than what i want it to target. I guess ultimately, im trying to dog-fight with these new generation jets. Maybe i shouldnt?

Alexander: flare, chaff is automatic only. They will always try to kill the missile in the terminal phase. When it succeeds, you should see flare or chaff count go down. When it doesn't, well, it's dead.

Yeah, I have seen that on many of the f-35 and Gripen, but for instance, yesterday my poseidon didnt release anything, nor evade when it had a full load out of countermeasures. How do the refuelling planes defend themselves during the refuelling process? Sitting ducks?

Nope. Countermeasures is always resolved by the logic when the missile hits (or misses). Look at the 3D. In the fireworks there is some flare and chaff always if the unit has relevant countermeasures; this is a signal from the system that, well, it tried Obviously when it fails, you never see the count go down.

Okay, well maybe its just me then. Its just that it reads on the display out of __ . which is why i know if it has been released or not. Eitherway, im sure it all works fine and its just my poor gaming skills.